Christmas Eve and Reindeer Food

 The weather was unseasonably warm for Christmas this year; definitely not a White Christmas!

On Christmas Eve, the kids headed outside to sprinkle their 'reindeer food" amongst the lights that we had shining on the house.

She is getting so tall!  She is already at least 3 inches taller than me and will probably grow at least another inch.

Yup, Sam and Steve were in shorts and Sophia was in her favorite sandals and socks.

A tee-shirt for this boy with some boots only because they were easy to slip on before heading outside.  

Ready to sprinkle her food!

Sometimes the kids do some light sprinkling ...

... and other times, they launch it high into the night sky.

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Afterwards, the kids headed back inside and opened their traditional Christmas Eve pajamas from us and posed for a picture.

Then, they settled in for a movie while Steve and I went next door to visit with our neighbors.  They had family in town and it was nice to have a glass of wine and catch up with them.

After the movie was over, we headed back home and the boys picked out some cookies for Santa.

And then Jimmy did the honors of putting the last magnet on our Countdown to Christmas:

With the kids all tucked into bed, the elves set to work making sure the presents were set out for the next morning.  Mia approved.

Christmas Cookie Decorating

With the kids off for Christmas vacation, we set to work making some sugar cookies and decorating them.  Over the years, we have perfected the technique -- the cookie cutters are set out in the middle of the table and each kid is given an equal amount of sugar cookie dough to work with.  There is only one rolling pin (one that I have had for SO many years) and they have learned to take turns.  

The dough has been chilled and is ready to go:

Jack is still learning about how much flour to use when rolling:

One of Samantha's favorite cookies to make is an upside-down elf, which will later be frosted into a reindeer.

Perfect rolling technique.

One of the most important aspects of rolling/cutting cookies is to proportion the cutters on the dough in order to maximize the number of shapes you can make.  Jimmy has mastered this.

Sophia was in her element all morning.

I laughed to myself because the kids all seem to sit in the same spots whenever I pull this table out for holiday events such as cookie cutting and decorating, coloring Easter eggs, etc.  The boys are on one side of the table (in the same spot) ...

And the girls are on the other side of the table, in the same spots.  Always.

Once the shapes are cut, I load them onto a cookie sheet and transfer batch after batch of the cookies to and from the oven.  

Depending on our schedule, we will either decorate the cookies later the same day that they were baked, or wait until the next day.  This year, we waited until the next morning.

I laid out a disposable tablecloth, which makes the clean-up so much easier, and set up plastic trays to work on with lots of sprinkles and colored frosting.

See?!  The boys sat in the same spots again.  Ha!

The girls spend a lot of time focused on details.

Sam's reindeer were done and she moved on to decorating an ornament.

Jack had the idea to make some pool balls.

The reindeer are done!  (I'm not sure why one of them was upside down though!).

Sophia made a pizza:

Jimmy was most proud of his snowman:

An elf and Santa:

The finished products, drying on the counter, with a few plain ones for those that do not care for the sweet frosting:

Making Reindeer Food for Christmas Eve

If I were to make a list of holiday traditions, putting together bags of reindeer food would certainly make the list.  

A few things about the event change from year to year, but there are others that remain the same:

1.  We always do it on a day when all 4 kids can be together.

2.  The kids take turns filling their bags with whatever goodies our Christmas Elf left out for them that she knows Santa's reindeer will enjoy.

3.  When the bags are filled, the kids write their names on a tag or sticker so that they know whose bag is whose on Christmas Eve.

4.  The bags are then moved to a location (usually a special Christmas plate) to be set out until Christmas Eve.

I love looking at the variance of the bags afterwards.  Some are a little heavy on the marshmallows and chocolate chips and others are more thoroughly blended/mixed with powdered sugar.  

Potter Park Zoo - with Lights!

On a whim, for something a little different, we decided to take the kids to see our local zoo in Lansing all lit up with lights.  Normally, we don't really consider visiting the zoo in the winter, but we figured that it would be special to walk around and see the thousands of lights that were strung up around the grounds.  

We had an early dinner, dressed warmly and then headed out in hopes of seeing lots of lights and (hopefully) some animals.

One of the kids offered to take our picture:

There hasn't been much snow yet this season -- just a little bit in November -- so everyone was able to just wear shoes for comfortable walking.

We didn't get to see many animals at all, but there were several lighted displays, like this one, that made for a good photo op.

Jack, just hanging out among the trees:

I love this gazebo that is in the middle of the zoo so the kids obliged with one more photo:

All in all, we made a few great memories while we were there, but all us decided together on the way home that we would like to try a different location next year to see lights.  It was kind of pricey for our family of 6 and without being able to see any animals while we were there, it wasn't quite as much fun as it could have been ...

North Pole Breakfast - 2023

Another annual tradition that we have is welcoming our elf back from the North Pole around December 1st each year.  As the kids get older, I wonder just how long the magic will continue to last -- my hope is FOREVER -- and I am relishing each year that I have left with them to keep it alive.  

Christmas Catherine has very few antics/tricks that she repeats from year to year, but one thing that never changes is her North Pole Breakfast.  She arrives back, with her suitcase in tow, and leaves a note to remind the kids to be on their best behavior over the next month.  She sets out some breakfast goodies and juice and the holiday season begins.

This year, her spread included some mini donuts/donut holes, chocolate chip muffins, yogurt parfaits grapes and orange juice.

She even brought a mini tree with her decorated with mini penguins, which Sophia later moved up to her room for a little Christmas spirit and decoration.

Given that December 1st was a Friday, the kids were up bright and early for school (it was still dark outside) so that everyone could eat before their drop-offs / bus pick-ups.

We still have three different departure times in our household on school days: Samantha leaves for Jazz Band (a 'zero-hour' elective) at 6:30 am with Steve; Sophia is picked up by her bus at 7:00 am and the boys are picked up by their bus at 8:00 am.  It may seem a bit crazy and chaotic but I have grown to enjoy this schedule because the staggered form of it allows me time in between to make sure that everyone has a lunch / breakfast / snack / water bottle, etc.  

Christmas Decorating

It has been an annual tradition for a long time now to try and set up the Christmas trees/decorations the weekend after Christmas.  I know that many like to do it before Thanksgiving so that they can enjoy the season for even longer, but I like to try and keep the holidays separate from one another.  On Friday morning (post-Thanksgiving), the kids made hot chocolate to enjoy; we set up some Christmas tunes on the speaker and we set to work on the 'big' tree in the front living room.

Sam was in charge of calling out which branches (they are lettered) she needed ...

... while the others separated and brought them to her.

This job used to take quite some time when my helpers were much younger.  Now, they are experts and we seem to get the tree assembled in no time at all.

Such a great looking crew.

Sam made sure to include Jimmy in the process, right up to the part where he wasn't tall enough on his own.

Once the lights were strung, the kids helped me find all of their special ornaments and added them to the tree.  

Note to self: Every year I tell myself that this is going to be THE year that I start separating the ornaments into boxes based on whose ornaments they belong to.  Right now, they are all mixed together in totes.

We have such a great collections of ornaments, each with a memory or a story to go with them.

Even Mia has her own ornament for the tree.

After we assembled and decorated the tree in the living room, I set up the tree for the top of the stairs and Sophia gathered special ornaments that she wanted to include on that one.

Side note: why do my kids love to go barefoot in our house in the winter?  I, personally, prefer socks on my feet -- sometimes even in the summer -- but they love to go barefoot.  Shiver.

And then later that evening, it was determined that it was Sam's year to put the angel on the top of the tree.  While she wanted her dad to lift her up, like he had always done in the past, I told her that she was big enough to do it herself now.  Ha!  She is almost 5'6" tall now!  

She dragged a chair over and I made sure to document this special moment once again.

Over the course of the weekend, I worked on a couple more trees, LOTS of lights and decorating my fireplace mantle.  I just love the glow of everything this time of year!